Council of Europe condemns “unjustified scare” over swine flu

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Council of Europe condemns “unjustified scare” over swine flu

Adrian O’Dowd

1 London

The Council of Europe has heavily criticised the World HealthOrganization, national governments, and EU agencies for theirhandling of the swine flu pandemic.

The parliamentary assembly of the council—the internationalorganisation that protects human rights and the rule of lawin Europe—published a draft of a report that reviewedhow the H1N1 pandemic was handled.

National governments, WHO, and EU agencies had all been guiltyof actions that led to a “waste of large sums of public money,and unjustified scares and fears about the health risks facedby the European public,” says the report.

The conclusion came in the parliamentary assembly’s social,health and family affairs committee report published on 4 June.

The report was prepared by Paul Flynn, socialist member of theassembly and Labour MP for Newport West and approved by thecommittee ahead of a plenary debate at the end of this month.It says there was overwhelming evidence that the seriousnessof the pandemic was vastly over-rated by WHO, which led to adistortion of public health priorities.

Presenting his report at a committee meeting in Paris, Mr Flynnsaid, “This was a pandemic that never really was.”

The committee said there were “grave shortcomings” in the transparencyof decision making about the outbreak, which generated concernsabout the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on decisionstaken.

In particular, WHO and European health institutions were notwilling to publish the names and declarations of interest ofthe members of the WHO emergency committee and relevant Europeanadvisory bodies directly involved in recommendations concerningthe pandemic, the committee said.

This anxiety was in line with concerns raised by the BMJ inits investigation into how the pandemic was handled (BMJ 2010;340:c2912,3 June doi:10.1136/bmj.c2912).

The joint BMJ and Bureau of Investigative Journalism investigationfound that key scientists advising the WHO on planning for aflu pandemic had done paid work for drug firms that stood togain from the guidance these scientists were preparing.

WHO’s advice led to governments around the world stockpilingbillions of dollars worth of antiviral drugs as part of globalpandemic preparations, but these conflicts of interest havenot been publicly disclosed by the WHO.

Fiona Godlee, BMJ editor-in-chief, attended the committee meetingin Paris and addressed the parliamentarians. She said, “Keyguidance from WHO—on the need to stockpile antivirals,on the effectiveness of flu vaccines, and on pandemic flu ingeneral—was authored by experts being paid by industry.

“Given the huge public cost and private profit from the flupandemic, the existence of these conflicts of interest is ofgrave concern, more so because WHO has not been transparentabout them.

“WHO’s credibility has been seriously damaged by theseevents. Restoring credibility is crucial if WHO is to serveits proper function as the world’s most trusted technicaland policy organisation.”

In the council’s report, Mr Flynn took a closer look athow the pandemic was handled in three countries—the UK,France and Poland—because these countries showed someof the most extreme reactions to the announcement of the pandemicin June 2009.

The UK’s Department of Health initially announced thatabout 65 000 deaths were to be expected. At the beginning of2010, this estimate was downgraded to only 1000 fatalities.

By January 2010, fewer than 5000 people had been registeredas having caught the disease and 360 deaths had been recorded.France also overstated the pandemic and initially ordered 94million doses of vaccine. It managed to cancel orders for 50million doses of vaccine, but was left with millions of unnecessarydoses as only 5.7 million people were vaccinated by March 2010.The final French public health bill for vaccines amounted to365m (£300m; $435m).

Conversely, Poland is one of the few countries in Europe notto have purchased large quantities of vaccines because of safetyfears and distrust of the drug companies producing them, saysthe report.

The Council of Europe’s committee report sets out a seriesof urgent recommendations for greater transparency and bettergovernance in public health.

Harvey Fineberg, President of the Institute of Medicine of theUS National Academy of Sciences and chair of the WHO committeereview into the management of the H1N1 Pandemic and functioningof the International Health Regulations, welcomed the BMJ investigationand the Council of Europe report.

“These reports raise questions about potential, inappropriateinfluences on WHO decision making in the assessment and responseto the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and, more generally, question practicesemployed by WHO to guard against conflict of interest amongits expert advisers,” he said. “These topics are among thosethat will be fully considered by our review committee. At ourupcoming meeting in Geneva (30 June to 2 July 2010) we anticipatehearing from critics of WHO as well as from those who were involvedfrom the public and private sectors, at national and internationallevels, and in policy and decision making related to the H1N1pandemic.”